The approaches discussed in this paper refer to the problems involved in accessing words in the Mental Lexicon. Once such access has taken place all the other information associated with a word becomes available.The first section concentrates upon describing three models for lexical access which are defined in terms of the notion of an access code, the format in which information is presented to effect an attachment to the internal representation. The models involving direct sound-based access and the combined sound and visual access systems are extended by a morpheme based model, in which all access codes are more abstract than usually proposed.The second major section is devoted to a more detailed description of two specific models for lexical access, the Logogen model of Morton and the Active Search model of Forster. Following these the point is made that a model of the Mental Lexicon and its systems needs to be supported by a model for the specific tasks used to test such models and a number of stimulus attributes are described. The possible minimal inferences which can be drawn from effects on such attributes are listed. A third, combined model is proposed which has elements of both active and passive accessing systems, called the Short-List model, which offers a better analysis of the experimental data which is defined by specific tasks as well as the structure of the accessing systems.